For ambulance services these were times to put mass casualty, mutual aid, resilience plans and CBRN capabilities into action for real.
All of the training, testing of procedures and multi-agency exercising came to the fore and the ambulance response in all cases was highly effective and professional. Of course there are always lessons to be learned and ways to improve identified and this too formed a big part of ambulance activities throughout the year – sharing experiences, supporting staff involved and revisiting plans.